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Sintflut – A Concert Performance by Detlef Heusinger

Sintflut, the Flood, metaphor for apocalypse, primal myth not only of Western culture, is a theme with great contemporary relevance. Ars Electronica presents a composition by Detlef Heusinger for orchestra and computer, visually adapted as a video triptych.

Ars Electronica 2002 presents a jam-packed—and above all musically intensive—program of concerts, events and performances. One of the high points will be Detlef Heusinger’s Sinflut. The concert performance by the Slovakian Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Manfred Mayrhofer interprets—with tremendous current relevance—the flood as the ultimate metaphor for apocalypse.

Sinflut ('Deluge') is a video triptych for orchestra and electronic instruments. Ars Electronica will present a modified form of the original version of this work that premiered at the 2001 Donauesching Music Festival. The orchestra is divided into three groups that play in alternating accompaniment to three simultaneously projected films (similar to *triple ecran* by Abel Gance). The five-channel, tape-recorded additional sound track constitutes a direct reference to the films and orchestra groups. Large segments of the films consist of footage that is identical or similar, though with a different perspective or focus. Scenes in extreme slow motion alternate with those at extremely high speed. The video material shown on additional monitors is a made-for-TV version that maintains a spatialization. The films were shot in Austria, Germany, Hungary, and Italy; the postproduction work was done at SWR Baden-Baden and at ZKM Karlsruhe (here on Inferno).

In Sinflut, a video triptych based upon the apocryphal book *Henoch*, Detlef Heusinger attempts to establish a connection among Akkadian, Hellenistic and Yahwist flood legends. Henoch, God’s scribe, antediluvian patriarch and ancestor of Noah, makes his way on a dream-journey during which the mythological figures Philemon and Baucis, Andromeda and the pillar-hermit Simeon appear to him like chimeras bearing witness to human conceit. Obviously, we already find ourselves in the aftermath of a global catastrophe, since the only actual human being left to accompany him is a foundling who has drifted to him on a skiff. This skiff becomes what is supposedly a rescuing island, since a constantly rising tide in the wake of the dying-out of mankind is consuming the landscape as well. The journey ends in the underworld with a passage into light that leaves all questions open.

The film is an attempt to combine the aesthetic of Tarkowsky with the possibilities of video art. Even in the face of all the problematic issues inherent in this venture, it at least gives rise to an innovative way of dealing with the parameters of color and rhythm—also with respect to the music.

Sinflut, a cooperation of Ars Electronica and Brucknerhaus will be presented on September 8, 2002 at 8:30pm at the Brucknerhaus.

Sinflut was commissioned by SWR; Music: SWR Symphony Orchestra Baden-Baden and experimental studio of the SWR’s.






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